Examining the development of a teacher learning community: The case of a video club

Learning communities have become a widespread model for teacher development. However, simply bringing teachers together does not ensure community development. This study offers a framework for the development of a teacher learning community in a video club. Qualitative coding of video data resulted in characterizing the evolution of the video club group as they collaboratively explored issues of teaching and learning that arose in each other’s classrooms. The relationship between dimensions of the framework and how development on one feature interacts with development on another is discussed. The results inform the design of video-based learning environments for examining teaching practice.     

Novice teachers learning through participation in a teacher study group

Using Lave and Wenger’s framework of legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice, this case study explores the experiences of three novice teachers engaged with more experienced teachers in a teacher study group during their first year of teaching. The study illustrates how, over time, the novices moved from more peripheral to more central participation as revealed through changes in their talk and feelings about participating. The study highlights the importance of legitimacy and peripherality provided by the more experienced teachers and identifies the ways in which the facilitator scaffolded and mediated the novices’ participation and learning.     

“You have to get hit a couple of times”: The role of conflict in learning how to “be” a skateboarder

By examining the role of conflict in learning how to “be” a skateboarder at a skate park in the United States, this article illustrates how conflicts constitute key aspects of learning and teaching within communities of practice. Specifically, this article demonstrates how the practices of “snaking” and “heckling” are used by a group of skateboarders to learn and teach spatially appropriate behavior as well as social and ideological norms regarding class and gender. In doing so, this article builds upon and critiques the concept of community of practice used within many sociocultural theories of learning.     

Chasms and bridges: Generativity in the space between educators' communities of practice

This article presents findings from an ethnographic study that explored how participation in an educator network contributed to the production of meaning, identity, and agency among the teachers and school district administrators involved. Prominent in this process were the differences between practice in the network, consisting of dialogue informed by theory, inquiry, and reflection on professional experience, and the practice of participants' workplace communities. I argue that identities afforded by multimembership in these very different communities, along with the bridges participants worked to build between the communities, hold promise for generating change in the field of education.     

Becoming a tertiary teacher: learning in communities of practice

This paper discusses issues arising from three case studies of the ways people have become tertiary teachers in a polytechnic, a wananga (Maori tertiary institution) and a university in New Zealand. Despite institutional differences, the teachers gained most of their teaching knowledge and skills on the job, learning informally and experientially, and much less through engaging with formal courses or centrally organized educational development activities. Tertiary teachers belong to groupings such as their institution, discipline, department or teaching team that can be seen as communities of practice, and it is in those contexts that their working knowledge and identities as teachers develop. A communities of practice framework in three parts is proposed for supporting and strengthening tertiary teachers’ workplace learning and educational development.     

Mathematics teachers’ “learning to notice” in the context of a video club

This study examines changes in teachers’ thinking as they participated in a video club designed to help them learn to notice and interpret students’ mathematical thinking. First, we investigate changes in teachers’ talk about classroom video segments before and after participation in the video club. Second, we identify three paths along which teachers learned to notice students’ mathematical thinking in this context: Direct, Cyclical, and Incremental. Finally, we explore ways the video club context influenced teacher learning. Understanding different forms of teacher learning provides insight for research on teacher cognition and may inform the design of video-based professional development.     

Creating foundations for collaboration in schools: Utilizing professional learning communities to support teacher candidate learning and visions of teaching

Despite widespread acknowledgment of the power of professional collaboration, the norm in most schools is teachers working in isolation. Our study examined the impact of multiple layers of professional collaboration intentionally integrated into a one-year preservice teacher education program working in two elementary schools. Analysis of 23 teacher candidates' written reflections, focus group interviews, and classroom observations indicated that supported by collaboration with colleagues, they developed the skills and commitment to teach each student for understanding. Based on our research, we propose a shift in teacher education toward collaborative inquiry about teaching and learning within school/university partnerships.     

Turning the tide: creating Professional Learning Communities (PLC) to improve teaching practice and learning in South African public schools

Abstract

Poor learner performance in South African schools raises concerns related to lack of commitment and accountability from school leaders and teachers with no common vision to promote a culture of high learner performance. This paper provides a literature overview of research available on the impact of professional learning communities (PLC) on effective teaching and practices to promote higher levels of learning amongst students; the nature of PLCs; their essential characteristics, developmental stages and challenges; and an assessment of the benefits of PLC in schools and the challenges of PLC from other researchers’ observations. PLCs are necessary to encourage collaborative teamwork on essential outcomes and intervention activities in learning. Finally, I conclude by exploring how South African schools can benefit from the practices of professional learning communities which endeavour to improve teaching practices and poor learner achievement.     

From isolation to symphonic harmony: Building a professional development community among teacher educators

Professional development among teacher educators requires a framework in which collaborative learning can support growth and change. This study describes a professional development project modeled on a professional development community focused on thinking education in a teachers college. Qualitative measures revealed a multilayered process consisting of breaking personal and professional isolation through interdisciplinary collaboration, talk about student learning, improvement of teaching through skill acquisition, and professional development with the adaptation of new teaching dispositions and a sense of efficacy. The community was characterized by a safe environment which encouraged risk taking and mutual support, enabling significant change in college courses.     

Limits and potentials of social networking in academia: case study of the evolution of a mathematics Facebook community

The use of social networking services has rapidly increased in recent years, especially by university students. Some authors assert that they have educational potential in terms of promoting collaborative learning practices among undergraduate students which enhance engagement and understanding. This possibility is particularly relevant to mathematics learning, because university communities are frequently experienced as isolating and performance-oriented. This case study reports on the use of Facebook to support mathematical communication and more participative learning identities within a UK university mathematics department. It describes how the reactive formation of a student-led Facebook community became a source of conflict within the wider academic social community and how this conflict was eventually resolved. While it raises questions about the extent to which Facebook can encourage open collaborative learning within the wider context of student aspirations in a competitive climate, it notes its potential for fostering cross-cohort student support in a subject which frequently induces anxiety in its students.     

Improving adult learning and professional development in a post-conflict area: The case of Cambodia

All over the world, international development organizations try to increase professional capacity of local staff. These attempts are thought to fail because of financial constraints, but this is just part of the story. Professional development and adult learning theories approach learning from a western perspective, while many developing societies are organized according to non-western models. This article describes research conducted in the Cambodian Ministry of Education, focusing on how adult learning theory could be applied in order to improve learning and support transfer. When local experience and the cultural influence on learning are acknowledged, learning outcomes are found to improve.     

Border work: Teachers’ expressions of their literacy-related professional development needs in a First Nations school

This paper reports on a case study of teachers’ expressions of their literacy-related professional development needs in a First Nations school located in Ontario, Canada. The paper construes the work of the teachers as “border work” and argues that their literacy teaching work was complex and tied to an ongoing legacy of colonialism. Four interrelated themes are discussed. The paper recommends improving compensation and job security for educators in First Nations schools and supporting them to see themselves as knowledgeable professionals who can entertain sophisticated notions of literacy that consider its relationship to situation including culture.     

Negotiating epistemological challenges in thinking and practice: A case study of a literacy and inquiry tool as a mediator of professional conversation

This study examines how a Humanities team engaged in professional conversation to refine and implement a literacy and inquiry tool in an Asian Studies curriculum. Drawing on socio-cultural perspectives of teacher learning and theories of tools as mediators of action, this case study investigates the ways this community of practice discussed their understandings of contexts, curriculum, and classroom practice to implement the literacy and inquiry tool. Such practices hold promise for the design of professional learning experiences where teachers engage in conversations about key tools they can use in their practice and assume more control of their own professional learning.     

The school's role in encouraging behaviour for learning outside the classroom that supports learning within. A response to the ‘Every Child Matters’ and Extended Schools initiatives

Extended schools have an important role to play in a society that is undergoing significant change. This article moves beyond the normal ‘extended schools are a good thing’ rhetoric. It points out the risks of ‘bolt on’ policy initiatives, especially with regard to ‘pupils at risk’ and argues against the superficial adoption of such policy. In a compelling and often personalised account, Jeff Lewis argues that a positive emphasis must be placed on the opportunities that extended schools can offer, and these considerations are linked with wider discussions about the nature of inclusion.     

The role of teachers’ orientation to learning in professional development and change: A national study of teachers in England

This paper uses results from a national survey of teachers in England to test a hypothesised model of teacher orientation to learning (consisting of beliefs, practice and experiences about learning) and its relationship to teacher learning change. Results from a structural equation modeling process of 1126 teacher survey responses show that teachers bring an internal, external and collaborative orientation to their professional learning. The beliefs and practices associated with these orientations are also shown to have a moderate influence, via path analysis, on teacher learning change defined as a composite outcome of change in beliefs, practices and students.     

Conceptual process as a function of age and enforced attention in learning-disabled children: Evidence for deficient rule learning

Adapting a modified reception paradigm, three bidimensional rules (conjunctive, disjunctive, conditional) and two instructional conditions (enforced attention vs standard rule learning) are used to test the assumption that deficient rule learning rather than inattention is responsible for poor learning with learning-disabled children. Main findings indicate learning-disabled children are deficient on binary conceptual rule tasks for three age groups (6 to 7, 8 to 9, 12 to 13) compared to normal children matched on sex and IQ regardless of experimental instructions. For both groups, learning is retarded by rule complexity while rate of learning diminishes with increasing age. Data reflect a truth-table logic at all ages for both groups, although there is evidence that disabled children perseverate with a rule-learning hypothesis characteristic of younger nondisabled children. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that rule learning is deficient in children with learning disabilities.